Chapter 19: I Prefer Everyday Life Over Being a Selected One (2)
The boy agonizes.
The boy struggles.
The red and black thing comes to him again.
It beckons to him.
He pushes it away.
It retreats.
The boy stared for a long time at the place where it vanished.
…..
Flash—
Hoaquin opened his eyes.
The moment he awoke, what entered his vision was a blue-eyed girl, staring blankly for a split second. She was so close that if he raised his head, their foreheads might bump.
"Uwah!"
"Eek—!"
Startled by Hoaquin's shout, she screamed too.
"Wh-why did you suddenly yell?!"
"You're the one who was practically in my face! Of course I'd be surprised!"
"…Noisy."
Maschenny fidgeted with her fingers and looked away. For the record, whenever she gets embarrassed, she says "You're noisy" and pretends to be uninterested. It was dark, so her expression wasn't clear, but she was probably red.
After pursing her lips for a bit, Maschenny asked me:
"So I lost to you in the end, right?"
She fainted the moment she was hit by the Three Consecutive Shinsu Slashes. Everything after that was done purely by her battle instincts, not her will—so she wouldn't remember it.
"Pretty much. Still, when you broke through the Shinsu blades and attacked while unconscious… that chilled me. If my counter had been even one second slower, I'd have been the one knocked out."
Feeling mischievous, I grinned and added:
"And if that happened, I guess I would've been the one staring down at your face just now—like you were."
Crackling
Clang—
A bolt of lightning shot at me, but my Shinsu blade blocked it easily.
"Haha, that won't work on me anymore, Princess."
"Ugh…!"
Maschenny tried to fire another bolt, but then realized I was still a patient lying in a hospital bed, so she reluctantly stopped.
"Thanks for the consideration."
"…Shut up. Why am I even here? Where's my Assigned Ranker?"
"That guy? Since he's from a different faction, he just stood there and watched even though you were unconscious. So I carried you here myself."
"…What?"
"Yeah? He just watched, so I brought you to the hospital. Oh—did you not know he's from another faction?"
"…Why did you do that?"
"Huh? Don't we get along?"
Maschenny's eyes widened instantly.
"You said you have fun being around me. I have fun being around you too, so that means we get along, right?"
Maschenny stumbled over her words, flustered.
"H-how does that even—
"Well, if not, whatever. I had a good time. Guess you didn't. Goodbye, Maschenny. I doubt we'll see each other again until our rematch."
"W-wait—!"
Her panic became even more obvious. Too bad it was dark and hard to see. Judging from how flustered she was, I figured I'd teased her enough.
"Haha, alright, alright. I'm joking. Just a joke."
Only then did she look relieved. She really still had a naïve side. Hard to believe this girl ends up so twisted in the original timeline.
Oof—
I sat up from the bed and put on my coat.
"…You're leaving already?"
"Already? The moon—well, the 'light'—is floating in the sky. And the fact that I woke up means my body's basically fine now."
"Besides, thanks to someone, the clothes I was going to wear when becoming a Regular candidate got burned to ashes—and my favorite sword broke."
"Ugh… that…"
"Relax, I'm kidding. Don't worry about it. The clothes are whatever, and the sword broke because of my own shortcomings in battle anyway. And like I said earlier, fighting you was fun."
With that, I walked out of the hospital room, leaving her behind.
"Maschenny, it might not be my place to say this after beating you, but… hang in there. Faction politics are a huge headache, from what I've heard. I'll be rooting for you, personally."
"...."
I took one last moment to admire Maschenny's dazed expression, then headed back to the dorm.
There, LeBlanch-noona was already waiting.
"Back?"
"You said you had something to take care of, so I thought you'd be gone for a bit?"
"I'm done. I figured you'd come here instead of going to the hospital, so I came straight back."
I sat down on the sofa and stared blankly into the air for a long while.
"...."
"...."
A heavy silence hung between us. Eventually, LeBlanch-noona couldn't hold it in anymore and spoke first.
"Hey, why're you so gloomy? You just won the Festival."
"…I just don't know what I'm supposed to do for the next seven days."
Headon said I'd have one week after the Festival ends. After that, I'd start climbing the Tower as a Regular, beginning at the Second Floor.
But now that the Festival was over, I had no idea how to spend the remaining six days.
Meeting my friends on the floating castle on the 99th Floor? Impossible. Just traveling there would take weeks at minimum.
Reading this… Introduction to Shinsu Theory that Vicente gave me would kill time, sure… but spending the final week before becoming a Regular buried in a textbook felt wasteful.
"Noona, what did you do during your last week before becoming a Regular?"
"I didn't get ahead-of-time notice like you. I was scouted on the spot. But if you mean what I was doing right before that—training at my Family."
Ugh. Boring.
"If you've got nothing to do, just go sleep. It's already late anyway. Even if you think of something right now, you can't do it this minute. Seven days is plenty, so spending one day just thinking about it isn't a bad idea."
"Hmm… okay…"
She was right. So I opened the door to my room.
POP—!
BANG!
POP!
Suddenly, fireworks exploded. The light came on, and in front of me stood three white-haired boys and girls.
"Huh?"
A ridiculous sound escaped my mouth on instinct.
"Congratulations on being selected as a Regular, Hoaquin—!"
"Congrats, congrats, oppa—!"
"…Congratulations, Hoaquin."
In order: Albelda, Anna, and Vicente.
My precious younger siblings and friends from the floating castle on the 99th Floor—people I'd desperately missed for months.
Wait.
"Why are you guys here??"
"I pulled some strings."
Behind me, LeBlanch-noona smiled slyly.
"Noona, I told you not to tell them—"
Thud!
Albelda smacked the back of my head—hard.
"Ugh—"
"Hey, you idiot. What do you mean, keeping it a secret! If you found out three months ago, you should've told us then, so we could've come right away!"
"No, but… what about your classes on the floating castle? And you, Albelda—your health isn't even good."
"I'm not completely… okay, fine, I can't say I'm perfectly fine. Anyway! Did you think I spend all year in a hospital bed with an oxygen mask and an IV drip?"
…You do, though.
—Is what I wanted to say, but the mood wasn't right, so I held my tongue.
Honestly… I was happy.
But really, how did they get here? Getting from the 99th Floor to the 77th isn't something you do with a snap of the fingers.
"Your Ranker told us three months ago. It took two months to win over the floating castle's manager, and we departed a month ago. We arrived last night."
Ah. So the whole "don't tell the kids" request was ignored from the start.
Noona, thank you so much for completely disregarding my words.
Oh, right—the gifts I sent.
"Hey, did you guys receive the presents I sent?"
At my question, Anna beamed and pulled out the black-nose teddy bear.
Ah, the one I nearly lost to Maschenny when she almost fried it with electricity.
Seeing how happy Anna looked, the trouble I went through washed away as if it never happened.
"Okay, okay! Emotional reunion is over! Time to party!"
Before I knew it, Albelda had taken out two bottles.
One was orange juice.
The other… hmm?
"Hey, isn't that Arie-style traditional liquor? That's mine, isn't it?"
"Correct! You hid it really well in your room—took me forever to find it. Vicente found it for me!"
What—these kids are all underage and they're drinking?!
…is what I wanted to say, but it was way too delicious for that.
The Arie Family is supposed to have great resistance to alcohol anyway.
Watching Albelda mix Arie traditional liquor with beer from who-knows-where—something from the 134th Floor, apparently—to make a bomb drink…
I couldn't help but feel a strange disconnect.
Where did she even learn that?
Albelda poured only orange juice for Anna, and for me, Vicente, LeBlanch, and herself, she poured the bomb shots. Then she lifted her glass for a toast.
"To our quick advancement as Regulars, and to Hoaquin's swift promotion to Ranker—cheers!"
Haha… whatever. Cheers.
I felt embarrassed for trying to hide things from my friends.
I felt regretful, too.
But more than anything, I was grateful—deeply grateful—that they came all the way down 22 Floors just for me.
And the fact that I could spend these last six days with friends I otherwise could never meet—it felt like a dream.
We laughed, ate, and drank, and eventually a celebration cake came out.
Standing in the middle of my cheering friends, I blew out the candles after making a wish.
Even though in the original story, things ended badly…
In this life, at least—please, let me have a happy ending.
The candles went out in one breath, and as I looked at my friends smiling beside me, I truly believed that the wish I made could come true.
Maybe that belief… was too greedy.
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